Kennedy received 112,827 (0.17%) more votes than Nixon nationwide and although Nixon won the popular vote contest in more individual states (26 to 22),[2] the electoral votes held by those various states, when cast, gave Kennedy an Electoral College victory of 303 to 219. Nixon was the first candidate in American presidential electoral history to lose an election despite carrying a majority of the states.

The 1960 presidential election was the closest election since 1916. A number of factors explain why the election was so close.[3] Kennedy gained since there was an economic recession which hurt the incumbent Republican and he had the advantage of 17 million more registered Democrats than Republicans. Furthermore, the new votes that Kennedy gained among Catholics almost neutralized the new votes Nixon gained among Protestants.[4] Kennedy's campaigning skills decisively outmatched Nixon's. In the end, Nixon's emphasis on his experience carried little weight, and he wasted energy by campaigning in all 50 states instead of concentrating on the swing states. Kennedy used his large, well-funded campaign organization to win the nomination, secure endorsements, and, with the aid of the last of the big-city bosses, get out the vote in the big cities.[5] He relied on running mate Lyndon B. Johnson to hold the South, and used television effectively.[6]

This election is notable as being the first presidential election in which both major party candidates were born in the 20th century. It was also the first one in which two incumbent U.S. senators (Kennedy and Johnson) were elected as President and Vice President, a phenomenon that was repeated by Barack Obama and Joe Biden in 2008. In both instances, the President-elect was the younger of the two and also the junior senator from his state.

It was also the first presidential election since 1860 that the Vice President was a presidential nominee.

The major candidates for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination were Kennedy, Governor Pat Brown of California, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson,[7] Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. Several other candidates sought support in their home state or region as "favorite son" candidates without any realistic chance of winning the nomination. Symington, Stevenson, and Johnson all declined to campaign in the presidential primaries. While this reduced their potential delegate count going into the Democratic National Convention, each of these three candidates hoped that the other leading contenders would stumble in the primaries, thus causing the convention's delegates to choose him as a "compromise" candidate acceptable to all factions of the party.

Kennedy was initially dogged by suggestions from some Democratic Party elders (such as former President Harry S. Truman, who was supporting Symington) that he was too youthful and inexperienced to be president; these critics suggested that he should agree to be the running mate for another Democrat. Realizing that this was a strategy touted by his opponents to keep the public from taking him seriously, Kennedy stated frankly, "I'm not running for vice-president, I'm running for president."[8]

1960 Democratic primaries results

The next step was the primaries. Kennedy's Roman Catholic religion was an issue. Kennedy first challenged Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary and defeated him. Kennedy's attractive sisters, brothers, and wife Jacqueline combed the state looking for votes, leading Humphrey to complain that he "felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store."[9] However, some political experts argued that Kennedy's margin of victory had come almost entirely from Catholic areas, and thus Humphrey decided to continue the contest in the heavily Protestant state of West Virginia. The first televised debate of 1960 was held in West Virginia, and Kennedy outperformed Humphrey.[10] Humphrey's campaign was low on funds and could not compete for advertising and other "get-out-the-vote" drives with Kennedy's well-financed and well-organized campaign. In the end, Kennedy defeated Humphrey with over 60% of the vote, and Humphrey ended his presidential campaign. West Virginia showed that Kennedy, a Catholic, could win in a heavily Protestant state. Although Kennedy had only competed in nine presidential primaries,[11] Kennedy's rivals, Johnson and Symington, failed to campaign in any primaries. Even though Stevenson had twice been the Democratic Party's presidential candidate and retained a loyal following of liberals, his two landslide defeats to Republican Dwight Eisenhower led most party leaders and delegates to search for a "fresh face" who could win a national election. Following the primaries, Kennedy traveled around the nation speaking to state delegations and their leaders. As the Democratic Convention opened, Kennedy was far in the lead, but was still seen as being just short of the delegate total he needed to win.

The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles, California. In the week before the convention opened, Kennedy received two new challengers when Lyndon B. Johnson, the powerful Senate Majority Leader from Texas, and Adlai Stevenson, the party's nominee in 1952 and 1956, officially announced their candidacies (they had both privately been working for the nomination for some time). However, neither Johnson nor Stevenson was a match for the talented and highly efficient Kennedy campaign team led by Robert F. Kennedy. Johnson challenged Kennedy to a televised debate before a joint meeting of the Texas and Massachusetts delegations; Kennedy accepted. Most observers felt that Kennedy won the debate, and Johnson was not able to expand his delegate support beyond the South. Stevenson's failure to launch his candidacy publicly until the week of the convention meant that many liberal delegates who might have supported him were already pledged to Kennedy, and Stevenson—despite the energetic support of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt—was unable to break their allegiance. Kennedy won the nomination on the first ballot.

Then, in a move that surprised many, Kennedy asked Johnson to be his running mate. Kennedy realized that he could not be elected without support of traditional Southern Democrats, most of whom had backed Johnson. Kennedy offered Johnson the vice-presidential nomination at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel at 10:15 a.m. on July 14, 1960, the morning after being nominated for president.[12]Robert F. Kennedy, who hated Johnson for his attacks on the Kennedy family, said later that his brother offered the position to Johnson as a courtesy and did not expect him to accept. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and Seymour Hersh quote Robert Kennedy's version of events, writing that John Kennedy would have preferred Stuart Symington as his running-mate and that Johnson teamed with House SpeakerSam Rayburn to pressure Kennedy to offer the nomination.[13] Biographers Robert Caro and W. Marvin Watson offer a different perspective; they write that the Kennedy campaign was desperate to win what was forecast to be a very close race against Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge II. Johnson was needed on the ticket to help carry Texas and the Southern states. Caro's research showed that on July 14, John Kennedy started the process while Johnson was still asleep. At 6:30 a.m. John Kennedy asked Robert Kennedy to prepare an estimate of upcoming electoral votes, "including Texas."[12] Robert called Pierre Salinger and Kenneth O'Donnell to assist him. Realizing the ramifications of counting Texas votes as their own, Salinger asked him whether he was considering a Kennedy-Johnson ticket, and Robert replied, yes.[12] Some time between 9 and 10 a.m., John Kennedy called Pennsylvania governor David L. Lawrence, a Johnson backer, to request that Lawrence nominate Johnson for vice-president if Johnson were to accept the role and then went to Johnson's suite to discuss a mutual ticket at 10:15 a.m. John Kennedy then returned to his suite to announce the Kennedy-Johnson ticket to his closest supporters and Northern political bosses. He accepted the congratulations of Ohio governor Michael DiSalle, Connecticut governor Abraham A. Ribicoff, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, and New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr.. Lawrence said that "Johnson has the strength where you need it most"; he then left to begin writing the nomination speech.[12] O'Donnell remembers being angry at what he considered a betrayal by John Kennedy, who had previously cast Johnson as anti-labor and anti-liberal. Afterward, Robert Kennedy visited with labor leaders who were extremely unhappy with the choice of Johnson and after seeing the depth of labor opposition to Johnson, he ran messages between the hotel suites of his brother and Johnson, apparently trying to undermine the proposed ticket without John Kennedy's authorization and to get Johnson to agree to be the Democratic Party chairman rather than vice president. Johnson refused to accept a change in plans unless it came directly from John Kennedy. Despite his brother's interference, John Kennedy was firm that Johnson was who he wanted as running mate and met with staffers such as Larry O'Brien, his national campaign manager, to say Johnson was to be vice-president. O'Brien recalled later that John Kennedy's words were wholly unexpected, but that after a brief consideration of the electoral vote situation, he thought "it was a stroke of genius".[12]

Norman Mailer attended the convention and wrote his famous profile of Kennedy, "Superman Comes to the Supermart," published in Esquire.[14]

With the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951, President Dwight D. Eisenhower could not run for the office of President again; he had been elected in 1952 and 1956.

In 1959, it looked as if Vice-President Richard Nixon might face a serious challenge for the Republican nomination from New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the leader of the Republican moderate-liberal wing. However, Rockefeller announced that he would not be a candidate for president after a national tour revealed that the great majority of Republicans favored Nixon.[15]

After Rockefeller's withdrawal, Nixon faced no significant opposition for the Republican nomination. At the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, Nixon was the overwhelming choice of the delegates, with conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona receiving 10 votes from conservative delegates. In earning the nomination, Nixon became the first sitting Vice-President to run for President since John C. Breckinridge exactly a century prior. Nixon then chose former Massachusetts Senator and United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., as his vice-presidential candidate. Nixon chose Lodge because his foreign-policy credentials fit into Nixon's strategy to campaign more on foreign policy than domestic policy, which he believed favored the Democrats. Nixon had previously sought Rockefeller as his running mate, but the governor had no ambitions to be vice-president. However, he later served as Gerald Ford's Vice President from 1974 to 1977.[16]

During the campaign, Kennedy charged that under Eisenhower and the Republicans the nation had fallen behind the Soviet Union in the Cold War, both militarily and economically, and that as president he would "get America moving again." Nixon responded that, if elected, he would continue the "peace and prosperity" that Eisenhower had brought the nation in the 1950s. Nixon also argued that with the nation engaged in the Cold War with the Soviets, that Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to be trusted with the presidency.

Both Kennedy and Nixon drew large and enthusiastic crowds throughout the campaign.[17] In August 1960, most polls gave Vice-President Nixon a slim lead over Kennedy, and many political pundits regarded Nixon as the favorite to win. However, Nixon was plagued by bad luck throughout the fall campaign. In August, President Eisenhower, who had long been ambivalent about Nixon, held a televised press conference in which a reporter, Charles Mohr of Time, mentioned Nixon's claims that he had been a valuable administration insider and adviser. Mohr asked Eisenhower if he could give an example of a major idea of Nixon's that he had heeded. Eisenhower responded with the flip comment, "If you give me a week, I might think of one."[18] Although both Eisenhower and Nixon later claimed that he was merely joking with the reporter, the remark hurt Nixon, as it undercut his claims of having greater decision-making experience than Kennedy. The remark proved so damaging to Nixon that the Democrats turned Eisenhower's statement into a television commercial.

At the Republican Convention, Nixon had pledged to campaign in all 50 states. This pledge backfired when, in August, Nixon injured his knee on a car door while campaigning in North Carolina. The knee became infected and Nixon had to cease campaigning for two weeks while the infected knee was injected with antibiotics. When he left Walter Reed Hospital, Nixon refused to abandon his pledge to visit every state; he thus wound up wasting valuable time visiting states that he had no chance to win, or that had few electoral votes and would be of little help in the election, or states that he would almost certainly win regardless. For example, in his effort to visit all 50 states, Nixon spent the vital weekend before the election campaigning in Alaska, which had only three electoral votes, while Kennedy campaigned in large states such as New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Despite the reservations Robert Kennedy had about Johnson's nomination, choosing Johnson as Kennedy's running mate proved to be a masterstroke. Johnson vigorously campaigned for Kennedy and was instrumental in helping the Democrats to carry several Southern states skeptical of him, especially Johnson's home state of Texas. On the other hand, Ambassador Lodge, Nixon's running mate, ran a lethargic campaign and made several mistakes that hurt Nixon. Among them was a pledge—not approved by Nixon—that as President Nixon would name a black person to his cabinet. The remark offended many blacks who saw it as a clumsy attempt to win their votes, while many Southern whites who still supported racial segregation and might have considered voting for Nixon were also angered.

The key turning point of the campaign were the four Kennedy-Nixon debates; they were the first presidential debates ever (The Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858 had been for senator from Illinois), and also the first held on television, and thus attracted enormous publicity. Nixon insisted on campaigning until just a few hours before the first debate started. He had not completely recovered from his hospital stay and thus looked pale, sickly, underweight, and tired. He also refused makeup for the first debate, and as a result his beard stubble showed prominently on the era's black-and-white TV screens. Nixon's poor appearance on television in the first debate is reflected by the fact that his mother called him immediately following the debate to ask if he was sick. Kennedy, by contrast, rested and prepared extensively beforehand, appearing tanned,[note 1] confident, and relaxed during the debate.[20] An estimated 70 million viewers watched the first debate.[21] It is often claimed that people who watched the debate on television overwhelmingly believed Kennedy had won, while radio listeners (a smaller audience) believed Nixon had won.[21] However, one study has speculated that the viewer/listener disagreement could be due to sample bias in that those without TV could be a skewed subset of the population : [22]

Evidence in support of this belief [i.e., that Kennedy's physical appearance overshadowed his performance during the first debate] is mainly limited to sketchy reports about a market survey conducted by Sindlinger & Company in which 49% of those who listened to the debates on radio said Nixon had won compared to 21% naming Kennedy, while 30% of those who watched the debates on television said Kennedy had won compared to 29% naming Nixon. Contrary to popular belief, the Sindlinger evidence suggests not that Kennedy won on television but that the candidates tied on television while Nixon won on radio. However, no details about the sample have ever been reported, and it is unclear whether the survey results can be generalized to a larger population. Moreover, since 87% of American households had a television in 1960 [and that the] fraction of Americans lacking access to television in 1960 was concentrated in rural areas and particularly in southern and western states, places that were unlikely to hold significant proportions of Catholic voters."[20]

After the first debate, polls showed Kennedy moving from a slight deficit into a slight lead over Nixon. For the remaining three debates Nixon regained his lost weight, wore television makeup, and appeared more forceful than in his initial appearance.

However, up to 20 million fewer viewers watched the three remaining debates than the first one. Political observers at the time believed that Kennedy won the first debate,[23] Nixon won the second[24] and third debates,[25] while the fourth debate,[26] which was seen as the strongest performance by both men, was a draw.

The third debate is notable because it brought about a change in the debate process. This debate was a monumental step for television. For the first time ever split screen technology was used to bring two people from opposite sides of the country together so they were able to converse in real time. Nixon was in Los Angeles while Kennedy was in New York. The men appear to be in the same room, thanks to identical sets. Both candidates had monitors in their respective studios containing the feed from the opposite studio so they could respond to questions. Bill Shadel moderated the debate from a third television studio in Chicago. The main topic of this debate was Quemoy and Matsu. It was a question of the US position over whether military force should be used to prevent buffer islands between China and Taiwan from falling under Chinese control.[27][28]

A key concern in Kennedy's campaign was the widespread skepticism among Protestants about his Roman Catholic religion. Some Protestants, especially Southern Baptists and Lutherans, feared that having a Catholic in the White House would give undue influence to the Pope in the nation's affairs. Radio evangelists such as G. E. Lowman wrote that, "Each person has the right to their own religious belief ... [but] ... the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical system demands the first allegiance of every true member and says in a conflict between church and state, the church must prevail".[29] The religious issue was so significant that Kennedy made a speech before the nation's newspaper editors in which he criticized the prominence they gave to the religious issue over other topics - especially in foreign policy - that he felt were of greater importance.[30] To address fears among Protestants that his Roman Catholicism would impact his decision-making, Kennedy famously told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, "I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters – and the Church does not speak for me."[31] He promised to respect the separation of church and state and not to allow Catholic officials to dictate public policy to him. Kennedy also raised the question of whether one-quarter of Americans were relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Roman Catholic. Kennedy would become the first (and so far only) Roman Catholic to be elected president.

However, Kennedy's campaign did take advantage of an opening when Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil-rights leader, was arrested in Georgia while leading a civil rights march. Nixon refused to become involved in the incident, but Kennedy placed calls to local political authorities to get King released from jail, and he also called King's father and wife. As a result, King's father endorsed Kennedy, and he received much favorable publicity in the black community. On election day, Kennedy won the black vote in most areas by wide margins, and this may have provided his margin of victory in states such as New Jersey, South Carolina, Illinois, and Missouri.

However, it was accepted that the issue which dominated this election was the rising Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.[32] In 1957, the Soviets had launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth.[32] Soon afterwards, some American leaders warned that the nation was falling behind communist countries in science and technology.[32] In Cuba, the revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro became a close ally of the Soviet Union in 1960, heightening fears of communist subversion in the Western Hemisphere.[32] Public opinion polls revealed that more than half the American people thought war with the Soviet Union was inevitable.[32]

Kennedy took advantage of increased Cold War tension by emphasizing a perceived "missile gap" between the United States and Soviet Union. He argued that under the Republicans the Soviets had developed a major advantage in the numbers of nuclear missiles.[33] He also noted in an October 18 speech that several senior US military officers had long criticized the Eisenhower Administration's defense spending policies.[34]

Both candidates also argued about the economy and ways in which they could increase the economic growth and prosperity of the 1950s and make it accessible to more people (especially minorities). Some historians criticize Nixon for not taking greater advantage of Eisenhower's popularity (which was around 60–65% throughout 1960 and on election day) and for not discussing the prosperous economy of the Eisenhower presidency more often in his campaign.[35] As the campaign moved into the final two weeks, the polls and most political pundits predicted a Kennedy victory. However, President Eisenhower, who had largely sat out the campaign, made a vigorous campaign tour for Nixon over the last 10 days before the election. Eisenhower's support gave Nixon a badly needed boost. Nixon also criticized Kennedy for stating that Quemoy and Matsu, two small islands off the coast of Communist China that were held by Nationalist Chinese forces based in Taiwan, were outside the treaty of protection the United States had signed with the Nationalist Chinese. Nixon claimed the islands were included in the treaty and accused Kennedy of showing weakness towards Communist aggression.[36] Aided by the Quemoy and Matsu issue, and by Eisenhower's support, Nixon began to gain momentum and by election day the polls indicated a virtual tie.

Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage for the winning candidate. Shades of blue are for Kennedy (Democratic), shades of red are for Nixon (Republican), and shades of green are for Unpledged Electors (Democratic/States' Rights).

The election on November 8, 1960, remains one of the most famous election nights in American history. Nixon watched the election returns from his suite at the famed Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, while Kennedy watched the returns at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. As the early returns poured in from large Northeastern and Midwestern cities such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago, Kennedy opened a large lead in the popular and electoral vote, and appeared headed for victory. However, as later returns came in from rural and suburban areas in the Midwest, the Rocky Mountain states, and the Pacific Coast states, Nixon began to steadily close the gap with Kennedy.

Before midnight, The New York Times had gone to press with the headline "Kennedy Elected President". As the election again became too close to call, Times managing editor Turner Catledge hoped that, as he recalled in his memoirs, "a certain Midwestern mayor would steal enough votes to pull Kennedy through", thus allowing the Times to avoid the embarrassment of having announced the wrong winner, as the Chicago Tribune had memorably done twelve years earlier in announcing that Thomas E. Dewey had defeated President Truman.[37]

Nixon made a speech at about 3 am, and hinted that Kennedy might have won the election. News reporters were puzzled, because it was not a formal concession speech. It was not until the afternoon of Wednesday, November 9, that Nixon finally conceded the election, and Kennedy claimed victory.

Of the 3,129 counties/independent cities making returns, Nixon won in 1,857 (59.35%) while Kennedy carried 1,200 (38.35%). "Unpledged" electors came first in 71 counties (2.27%) throughout Louisiana and Mississippi and one county (0.03%) in Alaska split evenly between Kennedy and Nixon.

A sample of how close the election was can be seen in Nixon's home state of California. Kennedy appeared to have carried the state by 37,000 votes when all of the voting precincts reported, but when the absentee ballots were counted a week later, Nixon came from behind to win the state by 36,000 votes.[38] Similarly, in Hawaii, it appeared Nixon had won the state (it was actually called for him early Wednesday morning), but in a recount Kennedy was able to come from behind and win the state by an extremely narrow margin of 115 votes.

In the national popular vote, Kennedy beat Nixon by less than two tenths of one percentage point (0.17%)—the closest popular-vote margin of the 20th century. In the Electoral College, Kennedy's victory was larger, as he took 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). A total of 15 electors—eight from Mississippi, six from Alabama, and one from Oklahoma—refused to vote for either Kennedy or Nixon. Instead, they cast their votes for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, a conservative Democrat, even though Byrd had not been a candidate for president.[39] Kennedy carried 12 states by three percentage points or less, while Nixon won six states by similarly narrow margins. Kennedy carried all but three states in the populous Northeast, and he also carried the large states of Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri in the Midwest. With Lyndon Johnson's help, he also carried most of the South, including the large states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. Nixon carried all but three of the Western states (including California), and he ran strong in the farm belt states, where his biggest victory was in Ohio.

The New York Times, summarizing the discussion late in November, spoke of a "narrow consensus" among the experts that Kennedy had won more than he lost as a result of his Catholicism,[40] as Northern Catholics flocked to Kennedy because of attacks on his religion. Interviewing people who voted in both 1956 and 1960, a University of Michigan team analyzing the election returns discovered that people who voted Democratic in 1956 split 33–6 for Kennedy, while the Republican voters of 1956 split 44–17 for Nixon. That is, Nixon lost 28% (17/61) of the Eisenhower voters, while Kennedy lost only 15% of the Stevenson voters. The Democrats, in other words, did a better job of holding their 1956 supporters.[41]

Kennedy said that he saw the challenges ahead and needed the country's support to get through them. In his victory speech, he declared, "To all Americans, I say that the next four years are going to be difficult and challenging years for us all that a supreme national effort will be needed to move this country safely through the 1960s. I ask your help and I can assure you that every degree of my spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long range interest of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world."[42]

Many persons believed that Kennedy benefited from vote fraud, especially in Texas, where Kennedy's running mate Lyndon B. Johnson was senator, and Illinois, home of Mayor Richard Daley's powerful Chicago political machine.[38] These two states were important because if Nixon had carried both, he would have earned 270 electoral votes, one more than the 269 needed to win the majority in the Electoral College and the presidency. Republican Senators such as Everett Dirksen and Barry Goldwater also believed that vote fraud played a role in the election,[37] and they believed that Nixon actually won the national popular vote. Republicans tried and failed to overturn the results in both Illinois and Texas at the time—as well as in nine other states.[43] Some journalists also later claimed that mobster Sam Giancana and his Chicago crime syndicate played a role in Kennedy's victory in Illinois.[43]

Nixon's campaign staff urged him to pursue recounts and challenge the validity of Kennedy's victory in several states, especially in Illinois, Missouri and New Jersey, where large majorities in Catholic precincts handed Kennedy the election.[37] However, Nixon gave a speech three days after the election stating that he would not contest the election.[37] The Republican National Chairman, Senator Thruston Ballard Morton of Kentucky, visited Key Biscayne, Florida, where Nixon had taken his family for a vacation, and pushed for a recount.[37] Morton did challenge the results in 11 states,[38] keeping challenges in the courts into the summer of 1961. However, the only result of these challenges was the loss of Hawaii to Kennedy on a recount.

Kennedy won Illinois by less than 9,000 votes out of 4.75 million cast, or a margin of 0.2%.[38] However, Nixon carried 92 of the state's 101 counties, and Kennedy's victory in Illinois came from the city of Chicago, where Mayor Richard J. Daley held back much of Chicago's vote until the late morning hours of November 9. The efforts of Daley and the powerful Chicago Democratic organization gave Kennedy an extraordinary Cook County victory margin of 450,000 votes—more than 10% of Chicago's 1960 population of 3.55 million,[44] although Cook County also includes many suburbs outside of Chicago's borders—thus barely overcoming the heavy Republican vote in the rest of Illinois. Earl Mazo, a reporter for the pro-Nixon New York Herald Tribune, investigated the voting in Chicago and claimed to have discovered sufficient evidence of vote fraud to prove that the state was stolen for Kennedy.[38]

In Texas, Kennedy defeated Nixon by a narrow 51% to 49% margin, or 46,000 votes.[38] Some Republicans argued that Johnson's formidable political machine had stolen enough votes in counties along the Mexican border to give Kennedy the victory. Kennedy's defenders, such as his speechwriter and special assistant Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., have argued that Kennedy's margin in Texas (46,000 votes) was simply too large for vote fraud to have been a decisive factor. Russell D. Renka, a former political science professor at Southeastern Missouri State University,[45] acknowledged that it was more than likely that Johnson's political machine in the state's lower Rio Grande Valley counties, including the notorious Duval County, could have managed to produce a significant number of forged votes for Kennedy.[46] However, Renka also acknowledged that Kennedy's margin in the state's initial tally made it far too difficult to prove that voter fraud had determined who won Texas and that any recount would've also been hard to conduct.[46]

Cases of voter fraud were discovered in Texas. For example, Fannin County had only 4,895 registered voters, yet 6,138 votes were cast in that county, three-quarters for Kennedy.[37] In an Angelina County precinct, Kennedy received 187 votes to Nixon's 24, though there were only a total of 86 registered voters in the precinct.[37] When Republicans demanded a statewide recount, they learned that the state Board of Elections, whose members were all Democrats, had already certified Kennedy as the official winner in Texas.[37]

In Illinois, Schlesinger and others have pointed out that, even if Nixon had carried Illinois, the state alone would not have given him the victory, as Kennedy would still have won 276 electoral votes to Nixon's 246 (with 269 needed to win). More to the point, Illinois was the site of the most extensive challenge process, which fell short despite repeated efforts spearheaded by Cook County state's attorney, Benjamin Adamowski, a Republican, who also lost his re-election bid. Despite demonstrating net errors favoring both Nixon and Adamowski (some precincts—40% in Nixon's case—showed errors favoring them, a factor suggesting error, rather than fraud), the totals found fell short of reversing the results for either candidate. While a Daley-connected circuit judge, Thomas Kluczynski (who would later be appointed a federal judge by Kennedy, at Daley's recommendation), threw out a federal lawsuit filed to contend the voting totals,[37] the Republican-dominated State Board of Elections unanimously rejected the challenge to the results. Furthermore, there were signs of possible irregularities in downstate areas controlled by Republicans, which Democrats never seriously pressed, since the Republican challenges went nowhere.[47] More than a month after the election, the Republican National Committee abandoned its Illinois voter fraud claims.[38]

However, a special prosecutor assigned to the case brought charges against 650 people, which did not result in convictions.[37] Three Chicago election workers were convicted of voter fraud in 1962 and served short terms in jail.[37] Mazo, the Herald-Tribune reporter, later said that he found names of the dead who had voted in Chicago, along with 56 people from one house.[37] He found cases of Republican voter fraud in southern Illinois, but said that the totals did not match the Chicago fraud he found.[37] After Mazo had published four parts of an intended 12-part voter fraud series documenting his findings which was re-published nationally, he says Nixon requested his publisher stop the rest of the series so as to prevent a constitutional crisis.[37] Nevertheless, the Chicago Tribune wrote that "the election of November 8 was characterized by such gross and palpable fraud as to justify the conclusion that [Nixon] was deprived of victory."[37] Had Nixon won both states, he would have ended up with exactly 270 electoral votes and the presidency, with or without a victory in the popular vote.

The actual number of popular votes received by Kennedy in Alabama is difficult to determine because of the unusual situation in that state. The first minor issue is that, instead of having the voters choose from slates of electors, the Alabama ballot had voters choose the electors individually. Traditionally, in such a situation, a given candidate is assigned the popular vote of the elector who received the most votes. For instance, candidates pledged to Nixon received anywhere from 230,951 votes (for George Witcher) to 237,981 votes (for Cecil Durham); Nixon is therefore assigned 237,981 popular votes from Alabama.

The more important issue is that the statewide Democratic primary had chosen eleven candidates for the Electoral College, five of whom were pledged to vote for Kennedy, and six of whom were free to vote for anyone they chose. All of these candidates won in the general election, and all six unpledged electors voted against Kennedy. The actual number of popular votes received by Kennedy is therefore difficult to allocate. Traditionally, Kennedy is assigned either 318,303 votes (the votes won by the most popular Kennedy elector) or 324,050 votes (the votes won by the most popular Democratic elector); the results table below is based on Kennedy winning 318,303 votes in Alabama.[48]

The actual number of popular votes received by Kennedy and Nixon in Georgia is also difficult to determine because voters voted for 12 separate electors. The vote totals of 458,638 votes for Kennedy and 274,472 votes for Nixon reflect the number of votes for the Kennedy and Nixon electors who received the highest number of votes. However, the Republican and Democratic electors receiving the highest number of votes were outliers from the other 11 electors from their party. The average vote totals for the 12 electors were 455,629 votes for the Democratic electors and 273,110 votes for the Republican electors. This shrinks Kennedy's election margin in Georgia by 1,647 votes to 182,519.[49]

Many Southern Democrats were opposed to the national Democratic Party's platform on supporting civil rights and voting rights for African Americans living in the South. Both before and after the convention, they attempted to put unpledged Democratic electors on their states' ballots in the hopes of influencing the race: the existence of such electors might influence which candidate would be chosen by the national convention, and, in a close race, such electors might be in a position to extract concessions from either the Democratic or Republican presidential candidates in return for their electoral votes.

Most of these attempts failed. Alabama put up a mixed slate of five loyal electors and six unpledged electors. Mississippi put up two distinct slates, one of loyalists and one of unpledged electors. Louisiana also put up two distinct slates, although the unpledged slate did not receive the "Democratic" label. Georgia freed its Democratic electors from pledges to vote for Kennedy, but popular Governor Ernest Vandiver, a candidate for elector himself, publicly backed Kennedy.

In total, fourteen unpledged Democratic electors won election from the voters. Because electors pledged to Kennedy had won a clear majority of the Electoral College, the unpledged electors could not influence the results. Nonetheless, they refused to vote for Kennedy. Instead they voted for Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd, a segregationist Democrat, even though Byrd was not an announced candidate and did not seek their votes. In addition, Byrd received one electoral vote from a faithless Oklahoma elector, for a total of 15 electoral votes.

There were 537 electoral votes, up from 531 in 1956, because of the addition of 2 U.S. Senators and 1 U.S. Representative from each of the new states of Alaska and Hawaii. (The House of Representatives was temporarily expanded from 435 members to 437 to accommodate this, and went back to 435 when reapportioned according to the 1960 census. The reapportionment did not take place until after the 1960 election.)

(a)This figure is problematic; see Alabama popular vote above.(b)Byrd was not directly on the ballot. Instead, his electoral votes came from unpledged Democratic electors and a faithless elector.(c)Oklahoma faithless electorHenry D. Irwin, though pledged to vote for Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., instead voted for non-candidate Harry F. Byrd. However, unlike other electors who voted for Byrd and Strom Thurmond as Vice President, Irwin cast his vice presidential electoral vote for Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater.(d)In Mississippi, the slate of unpledged Democratic electors won. They cast their 8 votes for Byrd and Thurmond.

Popular vote

Kennedy

49.72%

Nixon

49.55%

Unpledged (Byrd)

0.42%

Others

0.31%

Electoral vote

Kennedy

56.42%

Nixon

40.78%

Byrd

2.79%

Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote

Kennedy was both the last Northern Democrat and sitting United States senator to win either the presidency or popular vote until the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

20 states were decided by popular vote margins of 5% or less, the most of any presidential election.

This was the first election where the winning candidate received a majority of the electoral votes although the second-place candidate carried a majority of the states. As of 2012, it has subsequently happened once, in 1976.

Though the vote in both Alaska and Hawaii was very close in 1960, the election would foreshadow their future political leanings: Alaska has continued supporting Republicans in all but one election since (1964), while Hawaii has been carried by Democrats in all but two subsequent elections (1972 and 1984).

Kennedy was the first Democrat to win the presidency without carrying Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Oklahoma and Virginia, and the last to win without Ohio and Wisconsin (This was also the first election that Arizona participated in where it did not back the winning candidate). Kennedy is the last candidate from either party elected without carrying Ohio, and only one other candidate since has won without Florida (Bill Clinton in 1992). Kennedy was also the first winning candidate since 1912 not to carry California.

Since 1840, this is the second and most recent presidential election in which Alabama and Mississippi have had a different popular vote victor. (Mississippi was also unable to vote in 1868 due to Reconstruction). However, the majority of Alabama's electoral votes went to Harry F. Byrd instead of John F. Kennedy. All of Mississippi's electoral votes went to Byrd.

As of 2012 this was the last election in which Missouri and Kentucky voted for different candidates, also the last one in which Missouri and Tennessee voted for different candidates.